The iPod touch will probably surpass its stellar holiday 2008 sales by a large margin, TechCrunch concluded based on app usage data from the mobile analytics firm Flurry. The venture-backed San Francisco analytics company reported a nearly 1000 percent jump in iPod touch downloads on Christmas Day. This is the first time that Apple’s gaming gizmo recorded a higher app downloads count than the iPhone. The App Store saw a 51 percent overall increase in downloads from November to December versus 15 percent from October to November.

Other findings include the following highlights:

iPod touch seems to have repeated Christmas 2008 success when it emerged as the #1 gift choice of youngsters and their parents.

App Store downloads generated by the iPod touch clearly suggest that gaming remains the biggest-grossing business in the store.

Developers of mobile applications should definitely release apps and run holiday promotions ahead of the Christmas Day, when App Store downloads peak.

App Store downloads are 13 times higher than the Android Market.

Based on those observations and Flurry’s data, TechCrunch expects the iPod touch to drive an extremely strong first quarter results for Apple:

The data indicates that iPod touch sales skyrocketed leading up to Christmas, and that Apple’s App Store sales also saw a similar bump. Also expect the relatively smaller increase in month-to-month growth for Android to improve the value of Apple’s stock. It seems like, for now, they are defending themselves well against the Android OS. We’ll see whether that holds true after the Google Phone hits the market.

Drilling through the Android data, Android Market saw a 20 percent surge in downloads on the Christmas Day. As you’d expect, nearly half of Android Market’s growth is attributed to the Droid. More precisely, 49 percent of Android applications sold on the Christmas Day came from the Droid. Trailing behind Motorola’s handset are T-Mobile’s myTouch with 18 percent Android downloads and G1 and HTC Hero with 17 percent downloads each. Of course, those stats came from Flurry’s network of participating iPhone and Android developers and does not represent actual app sales or total download figures.

Flurry merged with Pinch Media December 23, creating what both companies called the leading and iPhone monetization and analytics service that covers 80 percent of iPhone, iPod touch, and Android devices. The deal came a month and a half after Google snapped AdMob for $750 million, providing Google with access to the network of 15,000 AdMob-powered mobile sites and apps, thousands of advertisers, and – most importantly, important App Store metrics.